Pages

Monday, October 19, 2015

Birthday Projects

The non-stop fun/overwhelming to-do lists of the Great Room Switch of 2015 is nearly complete. It was significantly easier to move here from Austin than it has been to switch two kids' rooms around, but they look amazing and someday James will have a night without assembling furniture or hanging a picture frame with unnecessarily difficult to line-up brackets. After two weekends of projects, I wrote one final 50-item to do list on Friday to wrap things up. Maybe 52-items. By Sunday morning, Landon's room was DONE and the girl's room was close and it was James's birthday so I put away the electric drill for the rest of the weekend.

But first, on Thursday I took my millionth trip to Target, this time JUST for laundry soap and came home with this unicorn riding shot gun. (With the laundry soap.)

I made eye contact with him across the store and knew that Cora needed him, what could I do? She's turning 2 soon. 2 is the birthday for unicorns.

Also on Thursday, James and I went out on a date for his birthday! We went to one of those Brazilian steakhouses where you eat lots of steak and drink caipirinhas. It was delicious and super fun. I posted this picture on facebook noting that my beloved was turning 33 and I didn't realize until 3 days later when I wrote in his birthday card that no, he's turning 34. Not 33. He's 33 right now.

I may have also bought two "3's" to put on his cake. He just seems so young at heart.

making birthday cards for dad, probably with the right age

I've decided that Cora's style is tutus and tees. She's rough and tumble and busy as can be, but she's way into accessorizing and always has a purse (or three) on her arm. This just suits her, I think.

All of her shirts must have animals on them and she points them out to you all day. It's adorable. All of her new winter jammies also have animals, thank you Carter's, and she is totally delighted by her big girl nightgowns.

Her and Claire's room isn't quite done, but they do have their new reading nook. Both of them spent a lot of time there on Saturday morning and I love it so much.

I will love it even more when Cora gets her PBK chair for her birthday in a coordinating lavender.

But back to James's birthday. I nearly ruined it when I got up with the kids and spent 90 minutes staring at piles of donation stuff, piles of empty boxes, and seemingly endless piles of stuff still to do and clean and hang up on walls. The kitchen had tools all over it and the playroom was a mess because we were reorganizing the toys and when he came out at 8:30 all bleary eyed and smiling at the decorated birthday table the kids had set for him (they get up early on our birthdays to set a surprise table with us, with MUCH earnest deliberation over which random leftover birthday supplies to use based on our favorite colors and the time of year and it is adorable and so sweet and one of my favorite things they do), I basically yelled into the air and nearly started to cry instead of saying "happy birthday!" because there was still so much to do and I didn't want to make him do stuff on his birthday but there was SO MUCH TO DO. So he canceled his run with Landon and cleaned things and then I felt like a monster, and then felt equally better/worse when like 30 minutes of combined effort made the house look great and there was really no reason for the yelling and crying and he said he didn't want to run anymore but I guilted him in to it by talking up how much Landon was looking forward to their tradition and bam, the day was back on track, and it really was lovely for the rest of it.

No more home projects for a while.

We went on a walk, ate everything at our favorite fancy brunch buffet, played with the kids outside, yelled at Landon to get off the roof, and played more outside. Later, I ran errands while James watched a movie with the kids and Cora napped (watching movies is in the James top 5 list of favorite things to do), and then we all went to Cheesecake Factory, because eating enormous quantities of food is really the prefect celebration of him.

The kids made him a million cards (almost literally; they kept multiplying throughout the day) and I made a double dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and sprinkles.

We were too full to actually eat it, but made up for that tonight with double servings.

He's an amazing guy and incredible dad. As I wrote in his card, May 33 34 be another year of our kind of wonderful.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome!

"Lag liv," imperfectly translated, means "law life" in Swedish. I'm half Swedish and I was in law school back when I wrote my first post in 2006, so Lag Liv I became and Lag Liv I still am!

Now I'm a full-time attorney, part-time barre teacher, and all-the-time wife and mom of three. We live a busy life in charming Fort Worth, Texas. You can read more about me and my cast of characters in the About Me and My Blog page. Happy reading and if you'd like to contact me, my email is lagliv [at] gmail [dot] com.